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EUGENE – This season hasn't gone as planned for Oregon's baseball team.

The Ducks were supposed to battle for an NCAA regional host position, not fight just to get into the postseason.

Ranked No. 20 by Baseball America when the season began, Oregon was 23-19 heading into the final month.

At that moment, the Ducks went into playoff mode.

Oregon finished the season on a 14-4 run, and it was just enough to impress the selection committee, and the Ducks now have new life.

As coach George Horton said, Oregon "came from the dead, basically. Kept pushing that lid off the top of the coffin."

The Ducks now have a second chance at their season, and their road to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, begins at 11 a.m. Friday against No. 24 Iowa in the Springfield (Mo.) Regional.

"We feel like we've been working hard the last month or so," said Oregon junior Mitchell Tolman, who is batting a team-high .329, with three home runs, 19 doubles, 40 RBIs and 42 runs scored. "We didn't play to the best of our ability early in the year, but we put ourselves in the best opportunity we could have to play further into June."

Oregon is 37-23 this season, with a team batting average of .254 and ERA of 3.68.

The Ducks enter the regional having won nine of their past 10 games.

"Now we're fighting for our lives to stay alive," said Oregon sophomore pitcher Cole Irvin, who is 2-4 with a 4.01 ERA this season. "And that's basically what we did these past few weeks. And we're excited to just continue that. I don't think any team in the country is as ready as we are because we've been doing it for the past five weeks."

Iowa is 39-16 this season and is the No. 2 seed in the Springfield Regional. The Hawkeyes are batting .273 as a team, with an ERA of 3.00.

No. 6 Missouri State is hosting the regional and will face unranked Canisius at 4 p.m. Friday.

"They're all tough," Horton said about the teams in the regional. "We knew we were going to travel, obviously. To say it's doable or easy would be disrespectful to the other three teams. Missouri State obviously deserves to host. But we might not even play them, so why talk about them. We have to worry about Iowa."

Oregon is making its fifth postseason appearance since the program was brought back for the 2009 season.

"It really is surreal, and I couldn't be happier for a group of athletes that accepted the challenge," Horton said. "They could have folded their tents. It would have been very easy to continue down that spiral of negative snowball, or whatever it was, lack of confidence."

The winner of the Springfield Regional advances to the super regionals, where it will face the winner of the Stillwater Regional. The eight super regional winners advance to the CWS, which begins June 13 in Omaha.

"To be honest, I don't know much about any of the teams," Horton said about the teams in the Springfield Regional. "All the 64 teams are worthy at this point, and we're happy to be included. I think when you overcome obstacles and challenges, it's a lot more rewarding."

pmartini@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6730 or Twitter.com/PeteMartiniSJ